Category: Writing

I’m a writer who loves a constraint. It is much easier to write when given a limiting factor than to write “anything, anything at all!” This year, I need to write 50,000 words by the end of the month. Wait,…

Marginalized characters are the cool thing now, amirite? Everybody wants to read them, everybody wants to write them. And while it’s nice to see so many privileged writers embracing characters unlike themselves and trying to incorporate them into their work,…

Is it me or does it seem like debut novelists get asked the same questions over and over? Not that there’s anything wrong with that—but I thought I’d mix it up and ask some of our own Grub Street/Novel Incubator…

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is just around the corner and this could be your chance to finally get that novel, or at least 50,000 words of it, written. The result might be highly flawed or rough, but just reaching…

I recently returned from living as my protagonist. To match my novel of historical fiction about queer pirates, I sailed for a week on a wooden tall ship from Boston to New York City. It was my 30th birthday gift…

People used to ask, “When is your next book due?” and I would laugh, self-consciously, because I didn’t have deadlines. I wasn’t a writer who had contracts or editors waiting for me to produce anything. In those bygone days, I…

Maggie Smith

About Us

Dead Darlings is devoted to celebrating the novel, from the process of creation through revision, promotion and publication. The authors, alumni from GrubStreet Boston’s Novel Incubator, have gathered to provide support for all novelists: aspiring, developing or successful.